The present application relates to network management, and more particularly to graphic user interface based automated procedures in network management.
Note that the points discussed below may reflect the hindsight gained from the disclosed inventions, and are not necessarily admitted to be prior art.
No doubt we are living in a time that almost every one of us and every single entity is connected by devices and computers via the Internet, proprietary intra-electronic networks through cable or wireless. Data and communications are being inter-exchanged constantly through the vast and complex network connections. A single interruption in network communication could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses and damages. According to some current conservative estimates, network outages could cost $1,400 per minute on average. Reducing the down time is critical to the success of business.
Like the transportation highways in the real world, the communication highways in the virtual world are becoming ever more tangled and more complicated each single minute. Management of these networks is becoming more challenging at the most basic levels. Identifying a problematic device from the vast sea of network devices is literally like finding a needle in a hay stack.
The conventional way for network troubleshooting requires a network professional to manually run a set of standard commands and processes for each of the devices. However, to become familiar with those commands, along with each of its parameters takes years of practice. Also complicated troubleshooting methodology is often hard to share and transfer. Therefore even though a similar network problem happens again and again, each instance of troubleshooting may still have to start from scratch. However, networks are getting more and more complex and it is increasingly difficult to manage it efficiently with traditional methods and tools. The following are the key challenges using conventional ways to troubleshoot network problems:
Firstly, with text-based Command-Line Interface (CLI) as the primary method for troubleshooting a network problem, a network professional usually needs to repetitively execute the same CLI commands and decode key data from the command output many times for many network devices. This process is error-prone, strenuous and time consuming.
Secondly, currently there is no efficient mechanism or method to record a troubleshooting process for future reference. Consequently network professionals cannot share their troubleshooting knowledge with other network professionals. Within the same enterprise the same network professional may need to spend the same amount of time and effort to troubleshoot the same problem which had occurred before.
A generic network troubleshooting process consists of the following tasks:                Define the problem        Gather the data        Analyze the data        Eliminate the possible problem causes        Find the root cause of the problem        
Many books and papers have been written to analyze the typical actions and decisions that are taken during each of these processes and how these could be planned and implemented via the standard procedures. However these procedures are static, and the process to gather and analyze data (usually via CLI commands) is still a very manual and meticulous process.
The invention of a computer-aided network engineering system, NETBRAIN™ Workstation (as described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,386,593 by the inventors of this application) provides a graphic user interface (GUI) that renders network troubleshooting automation possible. In a GUI-based system, a network structure may be represented with graphic features (icons, lines and menus) that represent corresponding features in a physical network. Such visual representation liberates a network engineer from memorizing the standard or proprietary protocols and the tedious manual tasks of typing.
The inventions provide GUIs for users to write Executable Procedures without having any programming background. After a Procedure is created, it can be run in NETBRAIN™ Workstation in connection with any network system. From start to finish, troubleshooting with a proposed solution may just take a few minutes instead of hours or days traditionally.